1. Technical Field
This invention is directed toward a system and method for method for streaming whiteboard content to computing devices in a networked environment. More specifically, the invention is directed toward a system and method for sending a sequence of enhanced whiteboard images to one or more remote meeting participants in real-time to allow network-based collaboration for all meeting participants during a meeting
2. Background Art
Meetings constitute a large part of many workers' working time. Making more efficient use of this time spent in meetings and the time and money spent traveling to and from meetings translates into a big increase in productivity and large cost savings.
Many meeting scenarios use a whiteboard extensively for brainstorming sessions, lectures, project planning meetings, patent disclosures, and so on. Note-taking and copying what is written on the board often interferes with many participants' active contribution and involvement during these meetings. As a result, some efforts have been undertaken to capture whiteboard content in some automated fashion.
Every business depends on the free flow of information and ideas to improve their products and services. Effective collaboration between people both inside and outside an organization increases product quality, improves product or project development lead times, and reduces costs. However, effective collaboration is often difficult. One issue that hinders effective meetings is that often people are not physically co-located. Traveling to meetings can be very time-consuming when considering lengthy travel times, and can be expensive. For a two or three hour meeting people often will travel a day to the meeting and a day back, especially if the meeting is across country or located in another country or on another continent.
Hence, there exists a great need to improve the ease of having a meeting with many participants that are not physically co-located that allows such remote participants to participate in the meeting in real time and share their ideas.